#rogue-rook

you the real MVP!!!!

i have had a couple comments there recently! reading GRAY AREAS in the year of our lord 2025 is bonkers but i love it

(1) it is possible!

(2) i did miss the spy work SEVERELY, there's a lot of fun (messed up stuff) there!!!!!

(3) i also missed the undercover Empire work that would've ruled so hard. i will cling to "Cassian went to the Royal Imperial Academy as an undercover spy" for all of my days because it goes so hard but this one at least would never have been possible for an ANDOR prequel show because it would've meant no Diego Luna which sooooo fair

(4) very real

the end baby decision HAS grown on me a bit; what is really getting me about it is that it is SO unbelievably tragic. like the initial thought behind GRAY AREAS was "ROGUE ONE was pretty tragic but I could make it MORE tragic" and actually now i think ANDOR did it more tragic???? i haven't been able to re-watch ROGUE ONE, it's just gonna break my heart severely

I also am not sure how Bix lives with that choice because it’s a hell of a choice and so difficult and tragic and bruh

i do want to say of all the little details from GRAY AREAS that made it in, the funniest one by far is one of the ones i found most self-indulgent, the Force healer bit!!! i always thought that was such an obnoxious thing i did but ACTUALLY

i also love that ANDOR went with the "hey you know we can interpret Cassian as an angel of some kind right?" because yes also so true

GRAY AREAS Cassian loml fr

do you think myrcella has a particularly strong character to stay cheerful from what we’ve seen of her or do you think that joffrey just didn’t treat her as cruelly as he treated everyone else? maybe he absorbed the “lannisters are special” mantra?

I think there’s a few things going on that worked in Myrcella’s favor:

I think Joffrey and Myrcella typically operated in different spheres, considering how gendered everything is in Westeros. Therefore, I don’t think Myrcella had many opportunities to upset Joffrey and make him lash out.

I think the Lannisters are performative, and I think Joffrey can perform as the Perfect Prince when necessary, especially when authority figures are present while he is growing up

I also think that Myrcella wasn’t typically left alone with Joffrey; noble girls in the south are often supervised by a septa.

this post has a bunch of links! i use the streams on mega.nz to make gifs because they’re 1080p, but i think the website only lets you watch a certain number of minutes at a time and then you have to either make a paid account or wait five hours to continue watching. i’m not sure how many minutes the cutoff is, it miiiiight be a full hour? because i only ran into the issue once and i remember i was able to gather quite a lot of giffing footage before it happened (i haven’t ever watched a full episode here, only used it to record giffing clips, so i can’t say for sure how long you can watch before the cutoff!)

would reblog it if allowed bc this is killer, but i respect you don’t want the weirdos stealing your brain thoughts! would read and reread a fanfic that’s just faux academic writing about the history of mandalore or the breakdown of the civil order in the outer rim or whatever

thank you for taking notice of my new banner!!!! I am aware of this aspect of Cody Bellinger and I find it absolutely fucking delightful.

(“Cody Bellinger, The Highest Player In Baseball” is a good primer for anyone wondering what this ask is about.)

(the gif form of this is better as it captures how Max Muncy is very anxious, tapping his hand furiously on the railing, looking around... meanwhile, Bellinger is Pondering. and this was Game 6 of the World Series! 7th inning! Very small lead! ANXIETY TOWN.)

I want to know what it’s like to live in Bellinger’s head. that must be a Place. do you think he’s generally happy in there? I am inclined to agree with you, re: guy in your philosophy class. he’s cute but maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed? his walk-up song is fucking “Hotel California”. not a good sign.

However, Bellinger seems to know things you might not expect. I watched a video once where Dodgers were asked really basic questions (like an in-game thing) and the question was “How many feet are in a mile?” and a lot of them didn’t know except Bellinger was like “Wait am I supposed to pretend I don’t know? it’s 5280.”

[Disclosure: I don’t always know how many feet are in a mile. don’t @ me.]

So, maybe, he’s really just cycling through a lot of knowledge when he has that look?? Maybe he’s good at memorizing things which helps explain why he’s so good at fielding and being in the right spot; if you can memorize a scouting report that would get you there!

[what’s happening here? Good reflexes?]

Jimmy Kimmel interviewed Bellinger and Clayton Kershaw after they won the World Series and it was good and funny. Some facts of note: Bellinger pulled over in Arizona to do the interview from a Subway parking lot. This feels both On Brand and hilarious. Jimmy Kimmel straight up asked him “Cody, do people tell you you’re high all the time?” 

[Kershaw, reacting to this question]

because yes this is a thing! and bless him, he said “I’m not high during the games!” which is.......... exactly the answer I expected. and then he went on to insist his face just looks like that, that in Little League he looked “faded.”

There’s also this incredible bit from a few summers ago when we had that eclipse over North America wherein Bellinger dons the eclipse-friendly glasses, looks at the sky, and goes, “whoa! you can see the moon.”

prompting, I believe, Kiké, to say, “That’s a really smart comment, Belli. I can see the moon.”

(But then Turner went outside, looked up, and went, “Holy fuck!” so like. YMMV.)

and then we have this:

"I've also heard whispers that Robert got a pair of twins on a serving wench at Casterly Rock, three years ago when he went west for Lord Tywin's tourney. Cersei had the babes killed, and sold the mother to a passing slaver. Too much an affront to Lannister pride, that close to home."

@rogue-rook asked:

hey, quick question, what passing slaver? was this at casterly rock, and if so, why was there a slaver over on that side of the continent? and if she sold the woman from king's landing, well, obviously some people know about it, that's yet another crime that could have brought her down?

GRRM hasn’t really elaborated on this, so all we can do is speculate, but I think all of this took place at Casterly Rock. 

(Assuming it happened at all. Remember that Littlefinger is speaking to Ned here, and he is trying to increase tensions between Stark and Lannister, and he knows what Ned’s hot-button issues are, specifically the murder of innocent children. I personally think this happened, given other things Cersei has done, but how much should we trust Littlefinger?)

I assume what happened is that:

Robert and his court visited Casterly Rock in 295AC to attend Tywin’s tourney. Robert had sex with a serving girl, probably in a manner similar to what happened with the Florent girl, in that it was semi-public and various people found out about it. 

Cersei stayed home at Casterly Rock for a bit while Robert went home

Cersei found out that this serving girl was pregnant

approx. nine months after the tourney, an Essosi ship came into port, either in Lannisport or Casterly Rock itself, to trade (perfectly legal) fine luxury goods to the Lannisters. (For example, Myr produces beautiful carpets, screens, lace, mirrors, and other expensive stuff the Lannisters (and other westermen) might want to buy.) The captain of this ship is kind of shady. 

Gregor smash :( 

Cersei found this shady ship captain and got him to take the new mother / former Lannister employee on board and sell her into slavery back in Essos. Illegal cargo hidden by his perfectly legal carpet trade (or whatever the shady captain traded in). 

Some things I’m wondering about:

How much did Tywin know? Did Tywin help Cersei? Did Cersei do her best to hide this from Tywin because it made her look bad and she’s desperate for her father’s approval and if she went running to her father it looks like she can’t take care of Things herself? 

Twins. It’s really interesting that the babies were twins, given that twins run in the Lannister family. Was this serving girl a descendant of a Lannister bastard? Were these twins a distant relation of Cersei’s? 

you’ve gotten grief about your star wars fics???? why would people do that?